Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/85

 56 runs) that when Al-Ḥīra was captured she should be his bride. Khālid insisted that the prophetic promise should be now fulfilled. The thing was grievous to the lady's household, but she took it lightly. "Care not for it," she said, "the fool saw me in my youth, and hath forgotten that youth remaineth not for ever." He soon found out that it was even so, and was glad to name a ransom, which having paid, she returned to her people.

The occupation of Al-Ḥīra was the first definite step in the outward movement of Islām. Here Khālid fixed his headquarters and remained a year. It was, in fact, the earliest Muslim capital beyond the limits of Arabia. The administration was left with the heads of the city, who were at the least neutral. Khālid, indeed, expected that being of Arab descent, and themselves long ruled by a native dynasty, the inhabitants would actively have joined his cause. ʿAdī, grandson of the poet of that name, was one of the deputation which concluded the peace. "Tell me," said Khālid, rallying him, "whether ye be of Arab or of Persian blood?" "Judge by our speech; doth that betray ignoble birth?" "True," answered Khālid; "then why do ye not join our faith, and cast in your lot with us?" "Nay," answered the Christian, "that we shall never do; the faith of our fathers we shall not abjure, but shall pay tribute unto thee." "Beshrew the fools!" cried Khālid; "unbelief is as a trackless desert; and the wanderer in it the silliest of the Arabs. Here are two guides, an Arab and a stranger; and of the two they choose the stranger!" The flux and reflux of Roman invasion had, no doubt, loosened their faith in Persia; but the Court of Al-Medāin was near at hand and, though in the last stage of senility, sufficiently strong to retain its hold upon a small dependency like Al-Ḥīra. The permanence of Arab conquest, too, was yet uncertain; the love of their ancestral faith was still predominant; and so the city chose to remain tributary. Several centuries later we find the inhabitants of the neighbourhood in considerable numbers still attached to the Christian faith.

Public prayer, outward symbol of the dominant faith, was